How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

California Court of Appeal / Joined 1979 / Served to 1987

John K. Trotter Jr.

Associate Justice, California Court of Appeal

John K. Trotter Jr. was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal (89 judges, selected by merit selection with retention), who joined the court in 1979. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1934 · age 92
Tenure: 1979–1987 · 8 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1979	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1982	California Court of Appeal	–	–
1982	California Court of Appeal	–	–

Judicial Record

In our data, Trotter authored 58 published opinions for the court (1982–1987), plus 1 dissent and 1 concurrence. Most cited: Blue Mountain Development Co. v. Carville (76 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge. 5 of these were attributed to Trotter by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1982	Blue Mountain Development Co. v. Carville	132 Cal. App. 3d 1005	76
1986	Garcia v. Rockwell Internat. Corp.	187 Cal. App. 3d 1556	52
1986	Kristin B. v. Richard B.	187 Cal. App. 3d 596	47
1983	Butcher v. Superior Court	139 Cal. App. 3d 58	47
1986	International Mortgage Co. v. John P. Butler Accountancy Corp.	177 Cal. App. 3d 806	46
1984	Register Division of Freedom Newspapers, Inc. v. County of Orange	158 Cal. App. 3d 893	44
1982	Coppinger v. Superior Court	134 Cal. App. 3d 883	39
1984	Grieves v. Superior Court	157 Cal. App. 3d 159	36
1984	In Re Spears	157 Cal. App. 3d 1203	34
1985	Iverson v. Superior Court	167 Cal. App. 3d 544	29
1987	State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Superior Court	191 Cal. App. 3d 74	26
1987	Dabbs v. Cardiopulmonary Management Services	188 Cal. App. 3d 1437	25
1983	In Re Marriage of Davies	143 Cal. App. 3d 851	25
1985	Charles S. v. Superior Court	168 Cal. App. 3d 151	24
1983	People v. Brucker	148 Cal. App. 3d 230	24

Showing the 15 most-cited of 60 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the California Court of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was John K. Trotter Jr. on?: John K. Trotter Jr. was an Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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8 years on the California Court of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).